Undoing Citizens United and Reining In Super PACs

Americans are fed up with a political system that seems bought and sold. In the 15 years since Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission¹ opened the floodgates to unlimited outside spending, super PACs and dark money nonprofits have poured billions into politics while ordinary citizens’ voices have been drowned out. Outside spending has exploded more than 28-fold, with just a few hundred mega-donors accounting for nearly all of it. The result is a collapse of public trust: Overwhelming majorities of Americans believe wealthy donors and special interests matter more to lawmakers than the voters themselves.²

For too long, reform has been framed as impossible without either a federal constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court reversal. This report shows that is wrong. Two complementary strategies—one rooted in states’ sovereign power to define corporate powers, the other in Congress’ authority to prevent corruption—offer the first real chance in a generation to curb the dominance of big money. Together, they cut off corporate treasuries, dark money nonprofits, and billionaire super PACs at their source, restoring the possibility of a democracy that answers to the people rather than to the wealthiest few.

The urgent need for reform

Americans across the political spectrum believe their government no longer represents them. They are not imagining things. Year after year, polls show overwhelming majorities convinced that elected officials listen more to wealthy donors and special interests than to the people who sent them to office. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 80 percent of U.S. adults say campaign donors have too much influence over congressional decisions, and 84 percent say special interest groups and lobbyists wield excessive power.³

This collapse of trust is not just a perception. It reflects a political system increasingly shaped by a handful of billionaires, corporations, and dark money groups that spend unlimited sums to sway elections.

This sad state of affairs starts with the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United.⁴ In that case, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority that independent political expenditures by corporations and other outside groups “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” That single sentence incinerated a century of campaign finance law and thumbed its nose at common sense. Within months, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in SpeechNow.org v. FEC extended the logic to contributions, creating today’s super PACs.⁵

The results were immediate and dramatic. Outside spending exploded more than 28-fold between 2008 and 2024, rising from $144 million to more than $4.2 billion.⁶ Dark money groups funneled billions of dollars through nonprofit fronts. Super PACs bankrolled almost every major campaign, with a tiny number of donors writing checks in the tens or hundreds of millions. Voters noticed. Confidence in democracy sank.

This report argues that reform is both necessary and possible. For 15 years, Americans have been told that Citizens United was a fact of life, and there were only two very politically remote ways to get rid of it entirely: a U.S. constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court willing to reverse itself.

But those are not the only options. Two paths, already opening, can together break the dominance of big money:

1. The Center for American Progress’ breakthrough state strategy—termed the Corporate Power Reset—to undo Citizens United by using state corporate law authority to stop granting political spending powers to corporations and dark money nonprofits
2. A federal legislative and litigation strategy to confront SpeechNow and rein in super PACs by exposing the false “independence” premise the Supreme Court embraced and lower courts extended

While a number of other political reforms are urgently needed and will be addressed in future reports, taken together, these two approaches provide a first critical component by mitigating the corrosive effect of unlimited campaign contributions in the U.S. political system. They are the first real chance in a generation to break the dominance of big money in American politics.

How we got here—from Buckley to Citizens United

The modern law of money in politics begins in 1976 with Buckley v. Valeo.⁷ After Watergate, Congress enacted strong limits on campaign finance. Buckley struck down some and upheld others. The Supreme Court drew a distinction between contributions and expenditures. Contributions to candidates could be capped because large donations risk corruption or its appearance. But expenditures—money candidates spend themselves, or money outside groups spend independently—were treated as “speech” that could not be limited. This split defined everything that followed.

For two decades, the court permitted Congress and the states to regulate corporate money more strictly. In Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce,⁸ the court upheld limits on corporate political spending, recognizing the “corrosive and distorting effects” of corporate wealth. In McConnell v. Federal Election Commission,⁹ the court sustained the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act’s (BCRA’s) restrictions on corporate electioneering communications, relying on a massive congressional record documenting corruption and its appearance.

Then came 2010. In Citizens United, the court swept away Austin and swaths of McConnell. Justice Kennedy’s opinion insisted that the only legitimate interest in campaign finance law was preventing quid pro quo corruption. And he made a breathtaking assertion of fact that was entirely unsupported by the record: Independent expenditures could not corrupt and could not even create the appearance of corruption. With a single declaration, Kennedy converted a century of caution into a laissez-faire rule: Corporations and unions could spend unlimited sums so long as they did so independently.

The very next month, the D.C. Circuit decided SpeechNow. Relying on Kennedy’s “no corruption” premise, the court held that if independent expenditures could not corrupt, then contributions to groups that only make independent expenditures could not corrupt either. Limits on those contributions were unconstitutional. With that, the super PAC was born.

The consequences were swift. In 2008, outside groups spent just $144 million on elections. By 2012, the first presidential election under the new rules, outside spending surged to more than $1 billion. In 2024, it reached $4.2 billion.¹⁰ A few hundred donors accounted for the overwhelming majority. In 2012, the top 1 percent of super PAC donors provided 77 percent of all funds; in 2024, that figure rose to 97 percent.¹¹

Dark money groups also took off. Nonprofit corporations organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the federal tax code began raising unlimited funds without disclosing their donors, then transferring them to super PACs. One super PAC in 2024 received a single $205 million transfer from its affiliated nonprofit.¹²

The rise of dark money has done more than warp campaign balance sheets; it has warped the substance of governance. When rivers of dollars flow into elections through dark money nonprofits, voters are left in the dark about who is trying to sway their choices. That secrecy is not an abstraction. It means a mining company can bankroll a campaign to weaken environmental protections without ever owning up to it publicly. It means pharmaceutical interests can spend against drug-price reforms without the public knowing who is behind the ads. The result is that voters cannot weigh the message against the motives of the messenger.

And crucially, dark money is only dark to the public. Those who benefit from it know full well where it is coming from. Candidates and party leaders understand which hidden donors are responsible for the ad blitzes supporting their campaigns. That knowledge cements a bond of obligation. The secrecy shields the donor from public scrutiny, but it sharpens the leverage the donor has over the recipient.

The court’s progression from Buckley to Citizens United to SpeechNow produced a politics dominated by outside money, awash in secrecy, and widely perceived as corrupt. That perception itself is corrosive. As Buckley recognized, the appearance of corruption is “of almost equal concern” as actual quid pro quo arrangements because it can render public confidence “distrustful and destructive of the system itself.” Yet by 2010, the court had forgotten its own warning.

To address the corrosive effect of money in politics, two distinct approaches are needed: encouraging states to use their plenary powers to eradicate dark money from the system, and passing federal legislation backed up by a massive new factual record to stop individual donors from giving unlimited amounts of money to super PACs.

In the states: Correcting the doctrinal overreach

The first prong of CAP’s legal strategy to curb corporate and dark money begins in the states. Corporations are not natural beings; they are creatures of state law with only the powers their charters grant. For most of American history, those charters were tightly limited. Early corporations were created one at a time for specific purposes—to build a bridge, operate a bank, or run a turnpike. As Chief Justice John Marshall observed in 1804, a corporation “is the mere creature of the act to which it owes its existence … capable of exerting its faculties only in the manner which that act authorizes.”¹³ Chancellor James Kent likewise described corporations as “merely political institutions,” confined to their chartered purposes,¹⁴ and in 1837 Chief Justice Roger Taney made the point plain: “A corporation is strictly limited to the exercise of those powers which are specifically conferred on it.”¹⁵

The ultra vires doctrine enforced this narrowness: Any act outside the charter’s purposes was void. For a century, legislatures drew charters tightly, and courts read them strictly. No one suggested corporations had political powers. No limited charter in U.S. history ever conveyed the authority to spend money in elections.

This principle can be brought forward into the 21st century: When states no longer grant corporations the power to spend in politics, the First Amendment has nothing to attach to. No power means no right. That is CAP’s strategy to undo Citizens United—and it is already advancing in Montana as The Montana Plan, a constitutional initiative headed for the state’s 2026 ballot.¹⁶

This principle was once universally understood. The story of how courts and legislatures strayed from it begins in the mid-19th century, when states began adopting general incorporation statutes. These were political reforms aimed at democratizing access to the corporate form.¹⁷ Instead of petitioning legislatures for individual charters, entrepreneurs could incorporate by filing simple papers. But contemporaries did not imagine these general statutes silently created new political powers. They understood them as bundling familiar business purposes—banking, manufacturing, railroads, insurance. Nothing suggested politics was included.

It was only in the 20th century, as courts interpreted such broad phrases as “any lawful purpose” that corporations were treated as having all the powers of natural persons. That leap would have startled the legislators who designed general incorporation.

Yet in Citizens United, the Supreme Court simply assumed away the question of power. It looked at Citizens United, a Virginia nonprofit corporation organized under state law that granted it “the same powers as an individual to do all things necessary or convenient to carry out its business and affairs”¹⁸ and took its political spending powers for granted. The analysis, then, proceeded only at the level of rights: Once a corporation is assumed to be fully empowered, the only question is whether it has a First Amendment right to spend in politics. The court never asked whether the corporation actually had that power in the first place.

CAP’s strategy reminds us that the Supreme Court has squarely placed the authority to assign corporate powers with the states. Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819),¹⁹ Greenwood v. Freight Co. (1882),²⁰ Hamilton Gaslight & Coke Co. v. Hamilton (1892),²¹ and CTS Corp. v. Dynamics Corp. (1987)²² all reaffirm this. States can grant or withhold powers as they see fit. They often do: Delaware, for example, denies private foundations the power to make political expenditures.²³

By statute or constitutional initiative, states can choose to no longer grant political spending powers to for-profit and nonprofit corporations. Such a move does not regulate rights; it defines powers: Corporations may pursue lawful business and charitable purposes, but not electioneering or ballot measure campaigns. As the text of The Montana Plan declares: “The people never did, and do not, intend the powers of an artificial person to include election activity or ballot issue activity.”²⁴

By adopting this prong of CAP’s legal strategy, states can end corporate and dark money spending in their politics—not only at the state and local level, but also in federal elections held within their borders. Citizens United does not prevent this. The decision presupposed corporations with political powers. If a state never grants those powers, there is nothing for the First Amendment to protect.

At the federal level: Reining in super PACs by correcting factual errors

The federal prong of CAP’s strategy does not aim to undo Citizens United, but instead to constrain its super PAC offspring by confronting SpeechNow’s extension of the “independence can’t corrupt” premise and by building records that show how so-called independent spending works in practice.

At the heart of Citizens United was Justice Kennedy’s claim that independent expenditures “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” That claim was not based on the case’s record. The original case concerned whether a nonprofit could air a film critical of Hillary Clinton, and its record contained nothing about super PACs or billionaire donors. But after requesting reargument, the court expanded the case to address broad questions of corporate spending. Kennedy then announced a sweeping empirical conclusion with no evidence behind it.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has called this “erroneous fact-finding.”²⁵ In a widely cited law review article, he warns that the Roberts court has developed a pattern of inserting empirical claims into constitutional rulings without record support, turning them into what professor Allison Orr Larsen calls “factual precedents.”²⁶ Lower courts then treat these assertions as binding truth.

Scholars across the spectrum echo this concern:

• David Faigman calls them “constitutional fictions,” urging that courts must tether constitutional interpretation to real-world evidence rather than judicial guesses.²⁷
• Larsen documents how lower courts cite Supreme Court dicta as factual authority, even though the court has no fact-finding capacity. She argues factual statements should have no precedential value.²⁸
• Henry Monaghan stresses that appellate courts must exercise “independent judgment” in constitutional fact review, but that judgment must be grounded in the record.²⁹ Citizens United ignored Congress’ 100,000-page record from McConnell.
• Judge Richard Posner warned that many appellate judges “don’t even understand what facts they need,” producing law detached from reality.³⁰

The federal prong of CAP’s strategy is to expose and correct Justice Kennedy’s false factual premise by building records that show the real corruption of super PACs. Congress has already taken the first step with H.R. 2352, the Abolish Super PACs Act.³¹ Introduced this year, the bill restores contribution limits for independent expenditure-only committees (the technical term for super PACs) and includes detailed findings: Since contribution limits were lifted, super PACs have exploded, billionaires have dominated, and corruption risks abound. The act squarely declares SpeechNow was wrongly decided.

The law will undoubtedly be challenged immediately. But that challenge creates opportunity. Under the Federal Election Campaign Act, a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C., hears constitutional challenges, with direct appeal to the Supreme Court. Even if bound by Citizens United, that panel can take evidence and make findings of fact. Congress’ findings, expert affidavits, and testimony from regulators can form part of the record. Those findings then go up to the Supreme Court.

In the litigation that follows, defenders of these laws must ensure the trial record squarely captures the realities that undermine the court’s old assumptions. Three areas in particular deserve emphasis:

1. Single-candidate super PACs: Show that these committees function as coordinated shadow campaigns, existing only to support one candidate.
2. Redboxing and vendor coordination: Document how campaigns post public cues to allied super PACs—a tactic known as “redboxing”—and share consultants and data, making supposed independence a legal fiction.³²
3. Quid pro quo via super PACs: Build evidence that mega-donor contributions routed through these committees purchase access and favors, functioning as bribes in all but name.

The strategy is deliberate: Litigate to lose on law but win on facts. Lower courts must follow Citizens United and SpeechNow, but they can still build factual records documenting corruption. Appellate courts must pass it along. Eventually, the Supreme Court faces the collision: Cling to Justice Kennedy’s “no corruption” dictum or confront the overwhelming evidence that independence is a sham.

This is not wishful thinking. The Supreme Court itself has acknowledged that facts matter. In Buckley, it recognized that the appearance of corruption is as damaging as actual corruption. In McConnell, it upheld BCRA on the basis of Congress’ factual record. In other contexts, the court has reversed course when empirical predictions proved false. And even if today’s court resists, the factual record will be there for a future court.

The point is persistence. Each lawsuit, each legislative finding, each hearing builds the counter-record. Over time, that record erodes the credibility of Citizens United and lays the groundwork for reversal.

How the two paths reinforce each other

The state and federal prongs of CAP’s legal strategy to rid America’s politics of big and dark money are not alternatives; they are complements. Each targets a different flaw in the court’s ruling:

• State strategy (undo Citizens United): States can clarify that corporations have no political spending powers. That doctrinal fix cuts off corporate treasuries and dark money nonprofits at the source.
• Federal strategy (challenge SpeechNow): Congress and the courts can confront the false “independence” premise and restore contribution limits for super PACs by building the factual record Citizens United

Together, these strategies cut off all three major channels of big money:

1. Corporate treasuries—shut down by the state strategy
2. Dark money nonprofits—also shut down by the state strategy
3. Billionaire super PACs—restrained by the federal strategy

Conclusion

For 15 years, Americans have been told there is no way out of the Citizens United era short of amending the Constitution, waiting for the Supreme Court to reverse itself, or perhaps nibbling at the edges by requiring disclosure. That was never true. States have always retained the sovereign authority to define the powers of the corporations they create.³³ Congress has always had authority to limit contributions to prevent corruption and its appearance.³⁴ Changing the course set by Citizens United does not require new powers; it requires using the ones already in place.

CAP’s plan shows how: In the states, undo Citizens United by redefining corporate powers; in Washington, rein in super PACs by confronting SpeechNow’s “independence” premise by passing such bills as H.R. 2352³⁵ and by building factual records that expose the false “independence” premise lower courts used to create them.

The stakes could not be higher. When Justice Kennedy declared that independent spending could not corrupt, he rewrote a century of law and set the stage for billionaires, shadow groups, and corporate treasuries to dominate U.S. elections. The experience of the past 15 years shows just how wrong he was—and how damaging his error has been for American democracy.

Americans deserve a democracy that represents them, not the wealthiest few. The tools are there: States never lost their sovereign authority to define corporate powers. Congress never lost its authority to limit contributions to prevent corruption and its appearance. The task now is to use them—while building the record that exposes “independence” as a legal fiction.